Tom Herbruck credits his target market: “People in Northeast Ohio who are really excited about authentic product made from raw ingredients that were grown, distilled, matured right here."

Herbruck applied to the state five times for a permit for his business. When it was finally granted in 2008, Tom’s Foolery became only the second Ohio micro-distillery since the repeal of Prohibition. The first, Cincinnati’s Woodstone Creek, got its permit in 1988 and still makes only three barrels a year.

Tom’s Foolery made only one barrel its first year, but today it’s filling four 53-gallon barrels a week.

Rolling out lots of barrelsLianne Herbruck, Tom’s wife, is the one who named the distillery Tom’s Foolery. She’s also the plant manager. A former midwife, she hadn’t expected such rapid growth.

“Our first year I think we only had 300 bottles, total. And this year we had 1,300.”

They’re riding a wave. Craft distilling enjoyed resurgence in Europe in the '70s, but America didn’t roll out the barrel till the '90s microbrewery boom. Today there are 350 craft distillers in the U.S. And the American Craft Distillers Association projects there’ll be 500 by 2015.